Author Alice Walker is raising awareness with the Happy Soul Festival

Author Alice Walker, 66, became the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for her 1982 novel The Color Purple. She is in London this week for the Happy Soul Festival, which aims to raise awareness of mental health issues among ethnic communities

Alice Walker is in London for the Happy Soul Festival

Why are you supporting the Happy Soul event?

Because I think black and ethnic communities would like to explore mental illness in our communities and a film festival is a wonderful way to do that. People can watch films, perhaps recognise some traits in their own lives and discuss them. Until people recognise in themselves the causes and cures for mental suffering it will be very difficult to heal the planet.

Why is there still a stigma about mental illness?

Because itâs always been stigmatised â the mad person was put outside the village. Itâs a dark corner of peopleâs consciousness. In the United States people with mental suffering just drug themselves. Itâs increased because the world we live in is so drear with climate change and all the catastrophes that happen. Those of us who have had mental suffering and have experience in these very scary areas need to step up and talk about it.

Youâll be discussing the film of The Color Purple. Are you fed up with talking about it?Â

Iâll be doing a Q and A but I havenât seen it for years. I stopped talking about it years ago. I wrote a book, The Same River Twice, which answered all the questions Iâd received about it. Iâve written many more books. The Color Purple is an opening into a certain kind of suffering that people have which is more widespread than we imagine but the writer doesnât have to keep hammering away at something theyâve already done.

Itâs on studentsâ reading lists. Do people e-mail you asking you to help with their essays?

Yes, and I ignore them. Sometimes I despair of our youth. These days people can find quick answers. People used to have to live the questions and then find their answers. With Google you donât need to live your questions.

What was the first story you wrote?

It was called To Hell With Dying and it was about a man I knew who died when I was away at college and I couldnât make it to the funeral.

Whatâs your new book about?

Overcoming Speechlessness is about visiting the Congo, Rwanda and Palestine, looking at why more progress hasnât been made in those areas. Part of the reason is the heinousness of some of the behaviour. Itâs so awful the brutality of humanity has robbed us of speech.

Youâve been to Gaza recently. What was that like?

Heartbreaking. The media and government in the United States have been so pro-Israeli for decades and denied Palestinians their humanity but I feel the tide is turning. People have been silent.

One of the things I learned from my teacher, Howard Zinn, is that if one person is speaking, they can wipe you out, with three people you need a team to come and get you but if you have a lot of people it takes a lot of work to shut you up. The young people are quite moral and understand right and wrong. Students at Berkeley have recently decided their school should disinvest in companies that supply the Israeli war machine.

Writers have a role â itâs good to go to these places and write about what you find.

You wrote a lot about Obama winning the election. How do you think heâs doing?

For me and many people of colour his courage in even attempting to change America gives him greatness. Iâm from the south and understand a lot of what heâs up against. Some of the Republicans heâs up against are like southerners from 50 years ago when black people would try to vote and the people with power would thwart every move. Sometimes I think Obama was naÃ¯ve, he didnât understand the country he lives in and how recalcitrant people can be based on race, privilege and money. Heâs doing the best he can do.